SaltShaker

 [America’s] first settlers were emigrants from different European nations, and of diversified professions of religion, retiring from governmental persecutions of the old world, and meeting in the new, not as enemies, but as brothers. The wants which necessarily accompany the cultivation of a wilderness, produced among them a state of society, which countries, long harassed by the quarrels and intrigues of governments, had neglected to cherish. In such a situation man becomes what he ought. He sees his species, not with the inhuman ideas of a natural enemy, but as kindred; and the example shows to the artificial world, that man must go back to nature for information.”

- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

Buenos Aires - It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been more than two years since I set foot in the Reserva Ecologica, but there you have it, times flies, and my posting on my one and only visit there is from January 2006! It helps, I suppose, that Buenos Aires has so many parks and green spaces of one sort or another, because I love spending time away from the city streets - though it does seem like I’ve done less of it here than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. Something to rectify. This last Sunday I just went and spent a couple of hours wandering around in the reserve, snapping photos, chatting with people, and enjoying the sunshine and the plants, birds… you get the idea. A few of my favorite photos from the day… though I snapped a bunch of general views, mostly I was taking closeups on various things that caught my eye.

 Everybody has a plan to save the Middle East. That guy with the bumper sticker does. Most of your friends do. Neocons have a plan. Peaceniks have a plan. Likudniks have a plan. The Bush Administration certainly thinks it has one, and we’re told the Democrats are working on theirs. Tom Clancy imagined deploying the Vatican’s Swiss Guards to keep peace on the Temple Mount. Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis told the Contra Costa Times in July that he knew how to fix the situation—but he kept the details to himself. The policy debate resembles my family’s Thanksgiving dinner conversation after I knock a glass of red wine onto my mother’s white tablecloth: everybody has an idea about how to fix it, everybody is eager to share their thoughts, many ideas sound superficially plausible, and it’s difficult to distinguish among competing solutions.”

- PolicyMatters.net

Buenos Aires - I vaguely remember some famous statesman being quoted once to the effect that most international conflicts, in the end, are settled over dinner - i.e., at some point, the conflicting sides have to sit down at the table and have a conversation - and its usually eased by having food on the table. I can’t find the quote, and I don’t remember who said it, but it makes sense to me. Now, of course, there’ve been many dinners, both big public affairs, and probably a good number of small, intimate private ones, aimed at solving the “crisis” in the Middle East. Clearly, they haven’t served the right menu yet. No guarantees that we did either, nor was it really our intent, but given my recent series of classes in the cooking of the region, which, in answer to the folks who’ve been inquiring as to “whatever possessed you to take a class at the Club Sirio?”, came about because I really like the cuisine of the area, and I recently acquired a copy of Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews by Poopa Dweck. Oy, I feel for her - I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, and no doubt where she grew up in Aleppo, Syria her name didn’t cause much commentary, but I have no doubt that in Deal, New Jersey, where she lives now, it just might…

My point, however, is that “middle eastern” or “arab” cooking doesn’t mean “islamic jihad” and suicide bombers showing up hors d’oeuvres. The region encompasses muslims, jews, christians, and probably the odd hindu or buddhist; and a dozen and a half countries, many of which are locked in various “other” conflicts, or not - Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, and Cyprus… there was lots of play room. On to the food, which was drawn from ideas garnered in the class, the aforementioned book, a couple of others that I already had, and a few ideas thrown in passively by the internet.

We made stuffed grape leaves in class… or watched them being made anyway. Traditional meat and rice filling and all that, and someone in class piped up with “what about vegetarians?” Well, while he didn’t have a recipe to hand out, Chef Abdala threw back a sort of “hmm… well, there’s this really delicious, cool filling you could make from: rice, almonds, golden raisins, tomato, cilantro, cardamom, baharat, coffee, and olive oil…” He left it at that and moved on, but I scribbled it down thinking it sounded interesting… First off, “baharat”? He referred to it a few times during classes, but passed it off as “a mix of spices, don’t worry about it, you can use allspice”. Interesting, as it turns out, and in fact, Poopa, our erstwhile author, uses allspice throughout her recipes - I wonder if its because baharat is hard to find in central NJ? The mixture, as it turns out, is readily available in middle eastern markets here - and looking it up it’s a blend of nutmeg, black pepper, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, paprika, and chili powder. To me, it doesn’t taste anything like allspice. Oh, and wait, coffee? Yup, he assured us on being questioned, that some freshly ground coffee in the mixture was a good thing - okay then. I winged it, as I generally do, and came up with this filling - note that the rice is raw - it’s just rinsed briefly in cold water…

… and then about a heaping teaspoonful went into each grape leaf, then I rolled them up - being careful not to overfill them, nor roll them too tightly - remember, the rice is going to swell up to nearly three times its size when it’s cooked. I like the method of cooking them too - line a pot with slices of tomato, then put the grape leaf packets in a ring, side by side, around the outer edge, wedged in pretty well together. Then fill the center with vegetable stock and a few crushed garlic cloves, put a heavy plate in to hold them in place and under the liquid, bring the pot to a simmer and cook for about 40 minutes. I served these cold, but they’re good hot as well. Alongside, a take on the Aleppo version of hummus, bringing in a bit of Turkish flavor - I made a blend of chickpeas (just cooked, and the skins removed - not canned, though I’ve tried that and it works well for this recipe too), olive oil, salt, lemon juice, tahini (sesame paste), garlic, cumin, and in place of Aleppo pepper, which as far as I know isn’t available here, I used some urfa-biber, a mildly spicy smoked Turkish pepper that I picked up a package of on my last trip to NY. Given that we hadn’t covered pita bread in class, I decided to defer to the internet and a recipe that, as assured, works out “perfectly”.

Sticking with the book for a moment, though combining two different recipes, a simple vegetable soup (celery, carrots, chickpeas (hmm, that was my addition, not in the original recipe, but I cooked too much for the hummus…), garlic) and flavoring it with lemon (juice and grated rind) and mint, and then meatballs made of ground beef (better to grind you’re own…) with some dry rice, baharat, cinnamon, and salt mixed in. Packed tightly into small meatballs and then simply dropped in the simmering soup and left to cook until the rice is done. Delicious! I loved the combination of flavors in this one, and it drew a couple of rave comments from guests.

This is my own twist on a couple of different dishes from different places. Traditionally, small eggplants are hollowed out and filled with a meat or vegetable stuffing, then layered with quince in a pot, cooked slowly for a couple of hours in the oven in a bit of stock, and then served topped with candied quince. I took out the latter as too sweet, but I got to this recipe because quinces and baby eggplant are in the markets this last week or two. I decided to simply braise them together with the spices that would normally have gone into the meat filling, just without the meat. So into a pot went the cleaned and destemmed baby eggplant, then I topped those with slices of quince, tomato, and white onion. Seasoned with good amounts of mint, allspice, cinnamon, garlic, some sugar and salt, olive oil, the juice of a lemon, and some pomegranate molasses. I covered it and cooked it slowly for a couple of hours, and it comes out great! Since I was playing with some spice mixture ideas, I spotted an Egyptian one called dukka, which I modified only in leaving out yet more chickpeas, and simply made a mix of sesame, coriander, cumin, thyme, mint, and salt, and then a quick flatbread that I rolled out really thin, topped with the spice mixture, and baked until it was chewy with just crispy edges.

Okay, not thrilled with the presentation, thrilled with the flavor. I’ll work on the former. The chicken leg/thigh combination skinned (save the skin, preferably in one big piece), and then marinated for about ten hours in a shawarma marinade - very typical throughout Israel, Lebanon, Jordan - white wine, vinegar, lemon, dried chili peppers, allspice, salt (all blended together) - and then quickly sauteed in a pan just to lightly brown the outside. Meanwhile, I cooked some spaghetti until it was just barely al dente - you want this on the undercooked side. Tossed it with some olive oil and then put it into little casserole dishes line with the chicken skin (for flavoring and to help brown the spaghetti a little was the idea, turns out it prevented the latter but added a whole lot to the former). Set a chicken piece atop each little casserole and into the oven to finish cooking, letting the meat juices drip into the spaghetti, which does crisp up a little bit, but not as much as I was hoping for. Flipped the spaghetti out onto the plate aside the chicken, removed the piece of chicken skin, and voila. At the very least it needs to be sprinkled with a little chopped parsley, no?

Taking off from a traditional dessert that involves little mini-empanadas filled with plain ricotta, then deep fried, and soaked in syrup and then served cold. I decided to go with a full sized empanada filled with our homemade ricotta that I’d sweetened a bit and added raisins and walnuts to. I baked them instead of deep frying them, then soaked them in a syrup made from sugar, water, lemon, cinnamon, cloves, and orange blossom water (pretty much right out of the class), topped them with a mix of cinnamon and sugar and served them up hot. They’re also really good the next day, cold, with coffee in the morning… trust me.

So, our little contribution to middle eastern multi-culturalism. To the best of my knowledge, no one attended who’s going to have much say in the solving of any conflicts in that part of the world, but, hey, you never know…

 A waiter arrived with a tray of falafel, the one item on the menu that didn’t taste as if it had been scraped off the wick of Aladdin’s lamp.”

- Tom Robbins, skinny legs and all

Buenos Aires - Continuing on my educational journey about one cuisine or another or method of cooking, I noted in passing, about 5-6 weeks ago, that a class in cocina arabe was coming up at the Club Sirio Libano, nearby to the house. I’ve eaten in their restaurant, and wasn’t overly impressed - good, but nothing exciting - however, it sounded like an interesting opportunity to see some of the techniques that go into the recipes, if not the recipes themselves. I contacted Chef Abdala of the restaurant, and he responded quickly with details on the class. Upfront, 350 pesos didn’t sound too bad for a four session, hands-on, limited enrollment class, as he stated it. Turned out, that enrollment wasn’t so limited, when I showed up on the first evening there were twenty students in attendance, and a few more joined the class at the other sessions, and a few didn’t return - so all in all it ran at about that number. But the disappointment was that it wasn’t hands-on. I clearly wasn’t the only one who had been under that impression - in the first few moments of seeing the classroom demo style setup for the course, someone piped up with the question about it - the chef’s response “well, if you want to come up and push the on/off button on the food processor, you can do that…”.

It didn’t turn out to be totally non-interactive - on a few of the dishes he asked for volunteers to come up and scoop one thing or another into a mold or roll a grape leaf, but overall, it was a demo class, followed by eating. Still, I learned a few tips and tricks to making some things turn out right, and I have the set of recipes from the class - some of which were very good, while others were simply okay - but given that I’ve got other recipes to use, I now at least have the methodology to help make them work out well. So hmm… do I recommend the class? I’m not sure - if you don’t mind paying 80 some pesos for a two hour session where you’ll watch someone make and explain how to make 4-5 dishes, and then getting a chance at the end to sample them - I suppose it’s a decent value and it was certainly interesting. And given how expensive some of the organized cooking classes here are getting to be, it’s probably not at all out of line - I may have just been spoiled by the private classes in cheese, preserve, and sausage making that only ran about 40-45 pesos for a 3-4 hour session… on the other hand, I certainly got far more out of those.

Over the course of the course… we learned the basics of: hummus, tabouleh, kebbe (both cooked and raw styles), fatay (arab style empanadas), babaganoush, falafel, salsa taratur (sesame-lemon sauce), various stuffed vegetables, rice and vermicelli, persian rice with chicken, chicken with honey and cous-cous (well, instant cous-cous, though he told us how to make the real stuff), a braised lamb dish (the last two not on the original lesson plan, but added in), and four different pastries. Promised in the upfront communication, plus on the list of recipes we received at the beginning of the class that we could count on learning - but never materialized - making pita bread, two other pastries, making both the drinkable and the thick styles of laban (more or less yogurt), and shawarma (though he did list off the marinade ingredients and talk about how to make it).

Met some new people. Got some ideas for recipes. Got some ideas for teaching… overall, I suppose, not a bad return on the investment of cash and time…

 When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

- Jenny Joseph, Warning

Buenos Aires - Ten years ago, artist Sue Ellen Cooper gave a friend of hers a red fedora and a copy of this poem for her 55th birthday. Via word of mouth, as she repeated the same gesture for other friends “of a certain age”, her circle quickly became a group, and then an organization, The Red Hat Society, or, as they prefer to refer to themselves, a dis-organization. Basically, it’s a bunch of women, most of whom are over fifty (those under fifty wear pink hats and lavender dresses rather than red and purple), who like to have a good time. Given that I’m approaching that milestone myself this year, I empathize. If you see me on the streets in a red fedora and a purple shirt, just know we’re headed out somewhere for some fun…

Since the tenth anniversary of the founding of this group fell on this weekend, it seemed a fun theme to play with - a little red and purple on the plate, as it were… and I managed a red t-shirt with a purple shirt over it, a few guests went for a purple or red sweater or shirt, and one arrived with a red fedora, which he claimed to have bought just for the occasion…

Leading off the evening was a simply named “Red Cocktail”, a blend of rum, banana liqueur, bananas and strawberries. Something to put us in the festive mood. Once seated, we served up these fun little Radish and Brie Terrines - well, maybe more of mousses… hard to say - I suppose they would seem more terrine-like if I’d one them as a long loaf sort of thing and sliced them, but I molded them in ramekins and then warmed them slightly to get them to pop out, accounting for the slightly melty consistency of the top, which had been the bottom, if you know what I mean. It’s quite easy to make - a blend of half a pound each of ripe Brie and fresh Chevre cheeses, a cup and a half of heavy cream, a couple of pickled hot red peppers, and some salt, all blended together until smooth. That went into a bowl along with a handful or so of toasted pistachios and a roughly equal amount of finely julienned radishes (say, ½-¾ cup each). Then, I heated up five teaspoons of powdered gelatin dissolved in a little cold water in the microwave for about 20 seconds, made sure it was well dissolved, and then quickly mixed it into the rest. Poured into the ramekins, and into the refrigerator to chill and set for a few hours. Topping the “terrines” are some bread and butter radishes, a favorite that comes from a recipe I found awhile back on Chow and which I like to have around the house, because, well, pickles are pretty much my favorite vegetable, regardless of what fruit or vegetable they involve.

Moving on to a roasted red pepper soup - a bit different than the usual simple purees that I find most places dish up for this moniker. Into a soup pot, lots of chopped white onions, celery, and sliced garlic. Cooked those in a bit of olive oil until soft and just starting to turn golden. Meanwhile, I’d already blackened several red bell peppers over the burners, let them steam a little, and removed most of the skin, and the stem and seeds. Those went into the blender with some chopped tomatoes (2:1 is a good ratio), a couple of fresh, hot red chilies - seeds and all - some powdered bay leaf, red miso, and freshly squeezed orange juice. Pureed all that and poured it into the soup pot with the cooked aromatics, and then topped it up to give it a soupy consistency with vegetable stock. Let it all simmer together for about twenty minutes, and, voilá. The garnish is some cubes of feta cheese lightly dusted in flour, salt, and red pepper flakes, and fried until just golden on both sides - the feta has to be really cold when you do this or it’ll melt too fast… trust me.

Not thrilled with that photo, but so be it… The idea of a tomato and shrimp risotto or pasta came to mind while planning this out, and, since I’m a big fan of risottos, even though they’re a pain to cook right, I went that route. I cooked some red onions in a little olive oil, then added arborio rice, chopped up sun-dried tomatoes (reconstituted from dry), and tomato paste, and cooked that in a mix of vegetable stock and a bit of red wine for color. Seasoned simply with a little salt and pepper, and then topped with small shrimp that were sauteed at the last moment in a mix of lots of garlic and chopped red rocoto peppers. This was my personal favorite of the evening… well, maybe the dessert… hmmm…

I knew I wanted to make something via the Chinese “red-braising” technique, which is probably one of my favorite braises. It’s also really simple. I sauteed short ribs that had been trimmed (not completely, a little fat in this dish helps the braising process) in a big pot until they were lightly browned. Then I added a mix of 2 cups of light soy sauce, 2 cups of dark soy sauce, ½ cup of shaoxing wine (a Chinese wine with a flavor similar to dry sherry, which you could also use), some dark loaf sugar, a handful of slices of fresh ginger, some fennel seeds, star anise, black peppercorns, and lots of szechuan peppercorns. Brought it up to a boil, reduce the heat to minimum, covered the pot, and left it to slowly cook for about three hours, until the meat was tender and near to falling off the bone. Accompanying it, some oven roasted radicchio that I’d marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, and salt - I wouldn’t do that again - it’s fine on its own, but the lemon was too aggressive to pair well with the ribs - maybe in olive oil and garlic, because I liked the radicchio itself with the ribs. A few pickled grapes rounded out the plate, and they made a nice flavor contrast with the ribs. (Wash, halve, and remove the seeds from about fifty red grapes, meanwhile boil together 1½ cups of sugar, ¾ cup red wine vinegar, a cinnamon stick, and ½ teaspoon salt. Make sure the sugar and salt are dissolved, let it simmer a few minutes, and then pour over the grapes. Let them sit for a couple of hours and they’re ready to use.)

I’ve got to start remembering to take photos of desserts sans whipped cream, which always just sort of comes out as a white blob on a a flash photo and besides it obscures the dessert. These were pretty little tarts - or perhaps they’re little cakes, or kuchen, it isn’t relevant, they’re delicious, and well, delicious. First, a batter made by creaming together 4 ounces of butter, 2/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup of light brown sugar. To that I added 1 whole egg plus two egg yolks, and a teaspoon of vanilla paste. Then I folded in 1 cup of pastry flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. I buttered some tart pans, and then spread the batter mixture evenly across the bottom - this amount made an even dozen tarts. I finely ground some walnuts and sprinkled them over the batter. Then I sliced up some fresh figs and put a couple of slices atop the batter in each tart pan, plus some wedges of purple plums - make a pretty pattern, you know? Into a 350°F oven for about 40-45 minutes and there you have it. You can also do this in one big tart pan. It’ll take slightly longer to cook, maybe 50-55 minutes. Thinking about it, these were so good the whipped cream was unnecessary, photo or not.

Happy Anniversary Red Hat folk!

 …born in a mansion and died in a shack…”

- from A Fierce Green Fire by Marybeth Lorbiecki

Buenos Aires - I’ve been to the barrio of Barracas (literally “shacks”) before, but always with a particular destination in mind. A friend suggested we take a real wander through the neighborhood - perhaps over time more than one, and we started off with a simple approach, printing out the city government’s self-guided walking tour - a good intro to many of the barrios in the city (a click of a button in the upper right corner and you can change the printout to English or Portuguese). They’re not detailed, by any stretch of the imagination - they tend to give a couple of sentences on each of maybe two dozen sites of interest - but it’s enough to take you on an interesting wander through an area - you’ll spot things on your own that aren’t included. Much of what they government tends to think will be interesting are sites where someone famous in the government world once lived or worked, or major companies that once were, or still are, king of the sandpile in their particular field.

In fact, the tour of Barracas begins with a former major cookie factory, segues in the middle to the remains of a major clothing manufacturer, and at roughly the endpoint is a former chocolate producer. On the way, you pass down streets where you are assured that once upon a time, the rich and famous and powerful lived. It’s a little hard to see that in this part of the barrio - what at one time were the quintas or mansions and grounds of some of the wealthiest families in the early years of the city, changed radically after the yellow fever epidemic of 1871, when those families headed for areas away from the river and neighboring areas where poor immigrants lived. The barrio became a collection of shacks - hastily erected structures - which housed the workers for the docks and factories that also began moving into the area. Today, most of that, at least in the part of Barracas that the walk guides you through, is a strange mix of old one and two family buildings of anywhere from poor to high quality construction, but nothing overly fancy, lots of churches, factories, and the blight of a zone that has no historic edifice protections - ugly apartment towers.

The tour starts just off of Parque Lezama in San Telmo, at the point where San Telmo, La Boca, and Barracas all come together. It heads down Av. San Martín and after a short strip of gas stations and McDonald’s, reaches the former cookie factor of Canale, which once, apparently “perfumed the entire barrio”. Poetic, if unlikely, given the size of the barrio and the stench of the waterfront…

In the midst of one and two story homes and businesses, every block seems to have one or two apartment buildings jutting up like the proverbial sore thumb. The worst part, with most of them, is that some architect and some owner actually came to agreement on a set of plans for these, looked at them and said, “oh yeah, that looks good… and so in keeping with the neighborhood…”.

Amongst the many churches in the barrio, this one stands out for its stunning gothic influenced architecture, multiple chapels, and, most interestingly, it wasn’t built by the Catholic Church, but by the parents of a young woman who was assassinated by a spurned would-be lover. Many of the statues that grace the church are of secular figures who were part of the story, rather than the usual saints and prophets and such. The church has guided tours on Sundays at 11 a.m…. one of these days it will be interesting to go back for that… there’s a gated grotto in the churchyard that looks like it might be the mausoleum for the young lady herself.

In the middle of a tree-lined street nearby is the surprising architecture of the Templo Israelita Or Torah, an orthodox, sephardic synagogue, with an onion dome, ornate doorways, and from a quick glimpse we were allowed of the inside, gorgeous Andalusian tiled mosaics in the entry foyer and a courtyard. Because of the Passover holiday no tours were being offered, but we were told we could call after this week and arrange for a tour. That’s a definite one to put on the list!

This old bakery caught my eye - clearly there for a long time, and I kind of like the juxtaposition of the old cast concrete sign with the “modern”, though still clearly fairly old, marquee sign.

The tour continues to the site of what is/was one of Buenos Aires’ most important textile manufacturers, Alpargatas. Strangely, or maybe not, given the odd sense of what’s important, the tour talks about the factory building - which is a huge, full city block, plain, dingy grey, concrete structure with its only notable feature a strangely out of place art deco style entrance. Much of the building appears to now be an outlet store for the textiles and clothing. Of more interest, and not mentioned, is the opposite side of the street, where stand the remains of the offices of the company, a building that was clearly far more ornate, and which now is nothing more than a facade, behind which is an employee parking lot and a couple of warehouses.

This local parrilla caught my eye - it’s little more than a lunch counter now with a couple of different sandwiches offered - at quite reasonable prices, no?

The former plant for the El Aguila (”the Eagle”) chocolate company, which still exists, though elsewhere. Most of this building has been converted to storage for the attached Easy store, more or less the local version of a Home Depot.

This was a fascinating find - I vaguely remember reading about this on a local travel site, though it didn’t really sink in at the time. This is a short, 3-block long narrow street (which the guide describes as a “sinuous alleyway”… I’m not sure that one 10° bend qualifies as sinuous, and it’s significantly wider than most alleys. A local artist, Marino Santa Maria, worked out a deal with the folks in the neighborhood (well, most of them, a few of the houses clearly had owners who didn’t go for the idea) to paint, tile, and in other ways decorate the homes along the street in interesting abstract swathes of color.

Each house is done up in a completely different fashion, which leads to a fun riot of color, that while perhaps not as striking (and not as easy to get to) as the Caminito in La Boca, which shows up on postcards and is a regular stop on local tours - mostly so that the guides can get a cut of the souveniers sold, is far more interesting for those with an eye for interesting street art to wander.

Conveniently located right at the end of the street, at the corner of Av. Suarez, is the parrilla Lanin, Suarez 1999, where we were served up one of the more jam-packed parrilladas for two that I’ve encountered - so much that between two of us we only made it through half, the rest we carted away - and roughly a mere 20 pesos apiece. Not only that, but it was really a very good mixed grill, with chorizo, morcilla, kidneys, intestines, steaks, pork chops, and ribs - well seasoned, and offered up with a decent, very garlicky chimichurri. The place attracts, at least during our lunch, a mix of local factory workers and businessmen, many of whom probably come there nearly daily for lunch.

There’s a whole lot more to the barrio, which is actually one of the bigger ones in the city, than this short wander, but it was an interesting introduction to a portion of it….

 One could argue that these [today’s] ‘plagues’ are fundamentally different than the ones in the Passover story because they can be seen as humankind’s own creations and not sent by God.

- Dan Weiss, Only 10 plagues? Early Egyptians had it easy

Buenos Aires - Most Jewish kids I knew when I was growing up dreaded Passover. First, we had to spend a week eating strange stuff… well, that wasn’t so bad, but it was that we could only eat that stuff… we couldn’t eat other things. Peanut butter and jelly on matzo does, after all, make a satisfying crunchy noise, and certainly a mess a crumbs of matzo go flying off in all directions. So maybe that wasn’t so bad. I think it was the Seder, the first night (and for some, the second as well) of the holiday. There was nothing wrong with the Seder meal - lots of food, interesting stuff - gefilte fish, apples and walnuts, lamb or brisket… it was the ceremony. Like any ritual, it’s hard to keep kids involved, especially when it’s a long, involved ritual, that includes lots of explication, recitation, and droning. And unlike most of the other holidays, at this one we actually had to pay attention, because kids have their part in the ritual - asking questions at certain times, answering others - and having to eat certain parts of the meal and drink “wine” (grape juice for us) at just the right moments. We couldn’t escape.

None of this, thankfully, came to mind when Jorge, the owner of Mama Europa, contacted me and invited me to come with guests to his seder last weekend. As noted in my previous post, I’d already scheduled a Casa S dinner that evening, forgetfully, and I thanked him, but had to decline. He persisted, in the best way, and invited us to come on night two. I invited a couple of friends to join me, and away we went to Las Cañitas and the site of one of Jorge’s former Big Mamma delis (of which only the one in Belgrano remains), which I reviewed a long time ago. The key, and most important thing here, are my/our thanks that go out to Jorge for this invitation and opening up his restaurant to friends, family, and people like us in the community whom he doesn’t know (he’s a regular reader here, and we’ve e-mailed back and forth, but never met). The inviting of strangers to share in the family meal is one of the central tenets of the holiday, though most families probably limit it to a theoretical invitation with the setting of an empty place for the prophet Elijah, in case he were to amble down the street and pick their bell to ring.

I’ll get back to the restaurant at some point and dig into the food - the menu looks great - and talk about the redone room - it has been, radically. For now, just a quick run through - Jorge led the Seder “service” - which he announced he would compress from its usual three hours into roughly three minutes. It might have been closer to ten, but it was still the shortest version of the ritual I’ve been through - in fact, he left the ritual off, letting us know we were welcome to have as little or as much of it as we wanted at our individual tables - and talked, instead, about the significance of the holiday, especially in regard to modern life in Argentina - one could tell he was directing a good percentage of his talk to the children at the large central family table. He proposed a single toast with a glass of wine, instead of the ritual four cups of wine (which always seems to get much press when people comment negatively on the holiday - oh, there’s all that drinking that “they” do… - I don’t know, in my family it was four little one ounce pours or so of Manishewitz or Mogen David sweet concord grape wine - hardly enough alcohol for the average adult to notice, not even the equivalent of the alcohol in a single gentile martini - and for us kids, it was, as noted, grape juice. I’m sure there are families where it’s used as an excuse to drink heavily, but that sounds to me like a family where those sort of excuses pop up on non-holiday nights.

And, we dug into the food. When we arrived, there was a cute little seder plate at each of our places with representations of the various components that are traditional - something to nibble on once the meal got underway - and a prelude to a platter containing cured sardines (amazingly good), babaganoush, and chopped liver; then on to chicken soup with dense matzo balls; a duo of gefilte fish (for the two of us non-Argentines, the first time we’d ever had gefilte fish served hot, we’re both used to chilled and gelled); and then braised beef ribs with potatoes and kishka (a vegetable and matzo meal sausage, basically); and an apple tart. In proper tradition, it was way too much food, and by the time we got to the ribs we were reduced to nibbling, the dessert barely got a deserving glance, let alone eaten.

On the wine front, my friends had brought a couple of bottles of Spanish kosher for passover wine (these days, it’s getting much easier to find good kosher wine - when I was growing up, there was little of note out there… I think… I mean, I don’t really know… but most of the good kosher wineries I know of now, weren’t in existence then) - from Bodega Capçanes in Monsant, their 2000 and 2001 Peraj Ha’abib, or “spring flowers” - a blend of roughly equal thirds of Grenache, Carignan, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2001 bold and spicy, lots of body, depth, and fruit, nice smoky tones; the 2000 very soft and fruity, just sort of lacking, all around, at least in comparison to the other - the friend who brought it felt it was an off bottle. Jorge contributed a third bottle to the table (we didn’t remotely finish the three bottles, and he joined us in the drinking of what we did consume), Familia Zuccardi’s Textual Marsellan 2003/4, a wine I’ve mentioned before, the grape being a cross between Grenache and Cabernet Sauvignon, and which I continue to enjoy - a light to medium bodied, spicy wine that worked, once again, really well with braised ribs.

 The government of Swaziland, one of Africa’s poorest and most Aids-ridden countries, has defended plans to spend nearly $2,5-million on celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of independence. Opposition deputies have called for the celebrations, which will also mark King Mswati III’s 40th birthday, to be scrapped or scaled down given that most of the one million population lives on less than $1 a day. But government press secretary Percy Simelane said that the anniversary is an important milestone in the landlocked country’s history and will serve to unite the people. “Such celebrations are a unifying symbol to the Swazi nation because that gives the ordinary Swazi the chance of celebrating with royalty during such functions. The figure is not an issue,” Simelane said.”

- Mail & Guardian

Buenos Aires - Okay, so maybe picking King Mswati III’s 40th birthday as our week’s theme wasn’t the best choice. That’s in hindsight. I picked it a month or more ago, knowing little about Swaziland, his kingdom - vague scraps of memory from geography classes eons ago - and even less, if anything, about the King himself. At one time thought to be the shining hope for his country - with his traditional tribal roots fused with a “western” education - the king has apparently shown himself to be not much more than an egotistical, spendthrift playboy with a penchant for retribution against any public figures or media who criticize him, and the sobriquet of “Fire Eyes” for his quick temper. He has some truly… dumb… ideas as to how to handle problems that confront his reign - some 40% of his population have HIV or AIDS, and, similar to some other African leaders his first response was to deny that such a disease could exist within his country, later deciding to invoke a ban on girls having sex until they reached 21 years of age, then later a five year ban on all sex in the kingdom (other than for himself, of course), and only in recent years finally having woken up to the need to do something effective. He spends money like water - in one recent year buying a private jet that cost more than his nation’s entire health and education budget - using public funds, of course.

But, it was too late. I’d picked the theme, and done the research on the cuisine, and away we went, with apologies to anyone in or from Swaziland who would take offense to our little birthday party for the king.

The evening was ushered in with a cocktail based on Amarula, a South African liqueur - being the closest thing I was likely to find to a Swazi sort of drink - mixed with milk and coca cola (1:2:2) - sounds weird, but it actually works, and the cocktail is known as the Elephant’s Day Dream. On one night of the dinner we actually never got the cocktail served - there was a rush for spots at the table and everyone was suddenly seated, so we moved straight into the dinner.

I’m not going to claim any deep knowledge of the local cuisine - I’ve never tried Swazi food, and the couple of people I know who have actually been to the country apparently subsisted on “continental” style hotel food rather than much of anything locally inspired. But with avocados in full season here and a couple of references to a traditional salad called Slaai, I thought it would be a great way to start. It’s simply very ripe avocado that’s been cubed, and then marinated in a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil (not traditional), lots of grated fresh ginger, salt and pepper. Various sources offered up chopped peanuts and or some sort of toasted local seeds as something to mix with the avocado, I decided on some sunflower seeds toasted with salt and chlies, just to give it a little spice. It really turns out delicious, though perhaps the serving of a whole avocado’s worth to each person was a bit much in the context of a five course dinner…

The soup for the evening, one that I could only find vague references to, is called, as best I could tell, Gerdara. It’s supposedly one of a couple of traditional dishes served specifically for the king’s birthday, and therefore seemed appropriate. Without any exact recipe, I was left to wing it based on some descriptions, along with similar sounding recipes from neighboring countries. The soup underwent a couple of changes between the two nights, and still isn’t quite where I’d want it - the first night the flavors were dead-on, but I thought it was a bit too oily and the fish had sort of fallen apart into bits. The second night, I changed the process, cooking the initial base without oil, later straining the broth, and then adding the fish at last minute so it just fiirmed up and stayed in nice cubes - but I thought it had less intensity of flavor than the first night, so… hmmm… some compromise. The process - I cooked a paste of shallots, garlic, cilantro (stems and all), lots of ginger, some hot chilies, ground bay leaf, and grated orange peel in some neutral oil on night one, after about 7-8 minutes of cooking, when they’d developed lots of nice aromatics and were soft, I added some wine, cooked that down until it evaporated, then added the whey from making ricotta for the later dessert, instead of water, along with a mixture of hake, cod, pollack, and catfish, all nicely cubed - brought that to a simmer and let it go for about twenty minutes, seasoned to taste and then served, ladled over cherry tomatoes and green onions. The second night, the same paste was made using the wine upfront, instead of oil, and then cooked about ten minutes - my sense is that without the oil, the paste just never develops as fully on the aromatics. I then added the whey, simmerered for a little while, strained it (which also might have been the mistake, leaving all the bits in would have kept infusing the flavors, and only added the fish about five minutes before we served the soup. Both versions good, neither version quite where I would want the dish.

Much to the consternation of anyone who thought I ought to be celebrating passover this last weekend (which I’ll get to in the next post), I’d scheduled this dinner without realizing that Saturday was the first seder night. So be it - it was already planned and booked up before I realized. And we can compound the error with this dish - bananas wrapped in bacon and baked (I’d glazed the bacon with a mix of miso and molasses, just to give it a nice sort of barbecued quality), and served over a corn pudding. It was inspired by a dish I’d seen on a Swazi recipe site - though the corn pudding there sounded simply… uninteresting. So I went with something a bit more norteamericano in origin… in a blender I combined roughly a quart of fresh corn kernels, just cut from the cob, 150 grams of butter, ¾ cup of coarse cornmeal, 1½ teaspoons of baking powder, 2 teaspoons of salt, 3 eggs yolks and pulsed it a few times until it was well combined. Meanwhile I blackened a trio of ají vinagre, what we might call Italian frying peppers, let them steam a little, removed the skins and seeds, and finely chopped them. I mixed that into the corn mixture, then beat the three egg whites until stiff, ladled this into individual casserole dishes (roughly a half cup of mixture each, this quantity made 14-15 of them), and baked them in a 300° oven for about 35 minutes until puffed and firm. Then I simply placed the bacon wrapped banana atop, and served. Maybe it’s the old “everything tastes great with bacon on it”, but I loved this combination - all the various flavors combined, to my palate anyway, beautifully.

The main course was nothing in particular to look at - a simple pan-seared loin of lamb, some diced sweet potato and carrots that had been roasted with thyme sprigs, and the sauce, which was the key. The traditional dish, as best I could gather, and this is another of the king’s birthday dishes, involves stewing the lamb and vegetables in the sauce until it’s falling apart - but I only could find lamb loin, not any good stewing lamb, this weekend, so decided on another approach. The sauce is a pureed mixture of peanut butter (preferably something that isn’t laced with preservatives, salt, and sugar - I used organic peanut paste), lots of white onion, garlic, and a scoop of shrimp paste, which I thought was an interesting touch. That was all cooked down in peanut oil until lightly browned and very flavorful - watch the addition of salt, that shrimp paste already has alot… Meanwhile I julienned some napa cabbage, sauteed it until it was completely wilted and slightly browned, and mixed that into the peanut sauce, then cooked it all together for about ten minutes. That went under the lamb. The flavors are definitely there, but I think I’d like to try this dish the braised way next time…

For the dessert, a simple cheesecake made with the amarula liqueur mentioned above, which is a cream liqueur made with the fruit of the marula tree, an indigenous one to the area, in place of the milk I normally add to the mix. It was topped, on the first night, with a quickly made hot caramel sauce, which I thought went well with the cheesecake, but not a perfect match… the second night I tried simply dusting it with a cinnamon and sugar mixture, with I thought worked better in terms of flavor, though, of course, a warm caramel sauce is a great thing - so maybe a cinnamon caramel sauce…?

And, that’s the name of that tune, as “they” say… we’ll leave this as a tribute to the official 40 years of Swazi independence, if not to the same 40 years of the king’s life…

 The whole country is filled with adventures, but there is adventure just in the visual landscape alone. There is always something familiar, but if it looks too familiar, you just have to look a little farther for the oddity.”

- Chris Patterson

Buenos Aires - Oddiites, curiosities, serendipities… A trio of restaurants that I’ve found myself in for one reason or another recently, and not had enough of a meal to get a solid feel for the places, so just a couple of quick notes.

First, there was an article I was writing on where to find “campo” style food here in the city. Country-style is, of course, a pretty subjective thing, and I checked out a bunch of places. One of them that someone suggested was a place that “reimagines” the dishes… which it turns out is not quite accurate. They do whip up a few interesting interpretations, but I didn’t get the feeling they were all that imaginative… hard to say. Maybe it was just the atmosphere, which is a heavy wood table and chair, almost underground club feel - and, indeed, the place has comedy shows a few nights a week (not on the evening we were there), at a microphone that’s basically just off to the side of the tables. Cava 71, Roosevelt 1533, in Belgrano, also offers up an interesting wine selection, with a “cave” you can enter and pick out your bottle from if you like. The food - good quality, though a trifle on the bland side. I thought they had some interesting ideas, if not radical reimaginings - we tried a trio of empanadas - sweetbread (yum!), entraña (skirt steak, really excellent), and cantimpalo (cured sausage, just okay); and then this duo of strangeness - morcilla in strudel, which seemed to be an awfully bland morcilla (blood sausage) that had been wrapped in “strudel” dough - which it wasn’t, this was a thick, empanada skin type dough; and a salchicha parrillada in pizza dough - which I envisioned literally, but turned out to be near the same as the first, the sausage meat removed from the casing and enveloped in a thin crust of pizza dough. Best things, the first two empanadas, no question. Friendly staff, might be interesting to go back on a night when there was a show… they also have a location listed in Palermo at Humboldt 2006.

Another spot that came onto my radar for this jaunt were the two branches of La Payuca, in particular the one close to home at Santa Fé 2587, right near to Pueyrredón, the other not far away in Palermo at Arenales 3443. Far more “authentic” in country style offerings, and actually quite good I thought. I tried a couple of empanadas - their carne picante and carne dulce - the latter excellent, and one of the juciest empanadas I think I’ve ever had, the former, almost identical except with some scattered red pepper flakes added, so didn’t quite hit the mark for me, thought still good. Their pastel de lomo con calabaza, one of a half-dozen campo dishes they offer, in piping hot earthenware bowls right out of the wood fired oven, was delicious - packed with steak inside and topped with a squash mash, lightly browned atop. The one negative, while they offer up a condiment tray with a trio of sauces on it to go with steaks, the usual chimichurris (white and red) and salsa criolla, they had absolutely nothing spicy in house, not even something as simple as tabasco sauce, to spice up the stews - and seemed mystified that anyone would ask - which seems strange given their location and the numbers of foreigners who must come into the place along with locals.

In a totally different vein, I was out walking around with some friends and we decided to stop in for a light lunch at Pizza Cero, a three location “chain”, we were at Tagle 2661, corner of Libertador, with a beautiful view of the park across the street. We sat outside, relaxed, enjoyed, and didn’t order pizza, which is, not suprisingly, their specialty. My friends wanted something basic, coffee and toast sort of stuff, which our waiter thought they might not have… they do at breakfast, he assured us, but at lunch, it was questionable. Coffee and toast? They did have as it turned out, so no issues. I opted for an eggplant parmesan, which was decent - the eggplants were cooked perfectly, the sauce a nice fresh tomato sauce, the parmesan missing… there was the mozzarella… or some kind of cheese, that was in thin slices and slightly firm, so either aged mozzarella or something else entirely, and a heavy dusting of poppy seeds. Odd, just odd. But reasonably tasty. Or at least it hit the spot.